More Work Sought For Roof

Lightning Protection Is Called Inadequate

August 11, 1998|By PAUL MARKS; Courant Staff Writer

WINDSOR LOCKS — Workers who tore the old roof off the fire and police headquarters last week found a potentially shocking situation: Lightning rods atop the building were not grounded according to the current building code.

First Selectman Douglas Glazier said the dozens of 18-inch copper rods were attached to the steel roof deck exposed by the workers. The current building code calls for more direct grounding to disperse the massive voltage of a lightning strike.

Glazier called a special board of selectmen meeting for 6 p.m. tonight at town hall to consider expanding the $82,000 roof-repair contract to include a new lightning-protection system.

``The new system will not be bolted to the steel deck, but will be bonded to the outer layer of the new roof,'' he wrote in a memorandum sent Saturday to the board of finance. Glazier is seeking that board's approval to pay for the lightning-protection system with part of the $130,000 budgeted for roof replacement.

He also wants to spend another $13,500 or so to have an engineering firm design a way to keep dust and diesel exhaust from fire engines on an upper level from being vented into the police station. Both are health hazards that should have been corrected long ago, Glazier said.

The first selectman said he has called four companies that specialize in lightning protection work, two in Connecticut and two in New York, and received two bids. The lowest, a bid for $8,700, came from Northeast Lightning Protection Systems Inc. of Bloomfield.

John Barnard, president of that 40-year-old company, said the lightning rods in the 26-year-old public- safety complex probably complied with the building code when the complex was built. But he said the National Fire Protection Association's lightning protection standards are revised from year to year. He said some years ago a lightning- rod system in Springfield that was similar to the one used in Windsor Locks shed sparks when lightning struck, threatening a fire.

``Whenever you use the steel framework of the building now, we go directly into the steel beams and not through the steel decking,'' Barnard said. He recommends grounding the lightning rods through a braided cable of 32 strands of 17- gauge copper wire.

That cable would be just slightly smaller than the one his company used to ground the new air-traffic- control tower built, but not yet opened, by the Federal Aviation Administration at Bradley International Airport, Barnard said. ``It's big enough to take any charge of lightning to the ground without harming anything,'' he said.

Glazier said the selectmen eventually may have to seek an added appropriation to cover installation of a new fumes-control system for the fire station and a better filtration system to control dust. Depending on the bids offered by contractors, he said, that work is likely to push overall spending beyond the $130,000 appropriation.